


body gold

by discountghost



Series: a beautiful day in the neighborhood [1]
Category: K-pop, ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24916459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountghost/pseuds/discountghost
Summary: Always check your new home for potential...neighbors.
Relationships: Son Dongju | Xion & Kim Youngjo | Ravn
Series: a beautiful day in the neighborhood [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803094
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34
Collections: Moonlight Fic Fest





	body gold

He isn’t sure why they have the basement taped off.

Dongju has only been in the house for a couple days, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. Bright yellow caution tape over the plain wooden door that leads to the basement. Dongmyeong doesn’t seem as stuck on it as he is, but then again, the other has already expressed his plans to have nothing to do with this house. He can’t say that he blames his twin. The scent of their grandmother’s perfume hung almost as heavy as the potpourri she favored. He licks his lips as he glances down the hall to the door.

He isn’t where to place the memory, but he has a faint recollection of opening that door earlier in his youth. It has to be quite some time ago, because it’s vague and blurry. Just the motions of him opening the door. No; not that door. Another, but he had to go through the basement door first. He sighs as he sets another box down on the counter. Eventually, he will have to go down there and see what he can salvage. For now, he sets to packing and unpacking things. This is his home now, after all. And someone else, if he can find someone willing to move this far out from the campus.

Another sigh fills the silence and he decides he would prefer to get something to eat than wallow through the aged memories of his grandmother’s home.

“You’re not seriously going in there?” Dongmyeong leans up against the counter, chicklet chomping as he usually does. His phone is in one hand and his head is cradled in the other when he looks up at Dongju. “It probably has mold or something.”

Dongju shrugs. “I’ll just cover my nose or something.”

“It’s probably wicked creepy down there.”

“You could go with me.” The remark earns him a glare. “Or not.”

His twin glances back down on his phone. Something has his attention enough that he straightens up. Dongju watches him curiously a moment, shuffling around things on the counter just to have something to do. He knows, with great certainty, that he’s merely delaying the inevitable. If not today, then another day that he has to cut off the big tape and go down the stairs. Something about it fills him with a sort of unease he can’t place. His stomach churns; the door is at the corner of his vision, taunting him. He sighs again.

“Hot date?” He eyes the other warily, before tugging a scarf from the hanging rack by the backdoor.

“Hm?” The other’s gaze darts back up to him. Dongmyeong looks, for once, startled. “Uh, no. Just a study group thing.”

“Mm.” 

Dongju can’t judge his brother for his choices any more than the other can judge him. But sometimes, he worries. Or at least, he suspects the other isn’t as put together and his devil-may-care attitude is just hiding something else. But — he’s not one to say he’s perceptive of these things. 

“Just...be careful?”

Dongmyeong blinks. “Yeah.”

Dongju manages a smile as he wraps the scarf around his neck. He pulls it somewhat taut, lifts part pf the cloth towards his nose. He’s sweating by the time he gets to the door with just that extra layer, but standing in front of the wood — he feels cold. A chill has hit him where he stands and he really doesn’t want to try to find some sort of explanation for it. He is, though, aware of Dongmyeong’s eyes on him. He ignores him as he tugs down the tape and grasps the knob.

“I’m gonna head out. Don’t die.” Dongmyeong is gone when he looks up, though he’s not entirely out of his stupor.

It’s cold, like any other doorknob would be, but he doesn’t like it. He suddenly wishes his brother would have taken the offer to go with him. He swallows, turns the knob. The door creaks open and he peers around into the darkness. The light from the hallway streams in enough that he can see that there is a lightbulb above him. He’s thanking whatever deity is up there looking over him when he flips the switch and it turns on. It’s musty, like someplace that has been boarded up. Technically, it has been. He unlocked it last night, but he didn’t have the stomach to open it.

There are stories he remembers. Things his grandmother would say to him. He doesn’t believe them as much as he did before, but the hang in the air around him as he descends the steps. The wood groans beneath his weight like they haven’t had someone come down them in a long time. His grandmother has only been dead about a month, so he wonders how much longer it has been since she was last there before she passed.

Sweat slides down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt. He’s not sure if it’s nerves or heat. It can’t be heat, because it’s so much cooler in the basement. The musk of the place is similar to an attic or storage room, but there’s nothing really in there. If anything, he wonders why his grandmother hadn’t just filled it with old objects. She used to say that items had a life of their own. The basement is spacious enough that she could stick anything she wanted to here.

The light doesn’t reach far enough down that he can see well, but he can make out the outline of a door. It doesn’t take him long to return with a flashlight, the hesitance he felt before gone. His curiosity outweighs it, by far. The door, when the light flickers on, is almost too big for the frame. Just barely. Cobwebs cover it, but he can’t see any spiders and for a moment he fears they might be above him. It prompts him to turn the flashlight up to the ceiling. There is nothing but bare wooden blanks from the floor above. He sighs.

The memories are hazy, but they get clearer the longer he stays down here. He remembers, in particular, that his grandmother had always said he shouldn’t be down here alone. His chest aches, thinking of her hand over his as they made their way down. He blinks, licks his lips as he goes closer to the door. His breath mists in the air and he’s suddenly aware of how quiet it is. His shoes don’t scrape against anything, and the house doesn’t groan in its settling like it used to. Just stillness.

He holds his breath, or maybe he doesn’t mean to but he does, as he turns the knob. The cobwebs are pulled inward with the door as it swings back. Easy. There’s no resistance to it. Dongju isn’t sure if that’s a good thing, but he can’t help but go forward. It feels more like he’s being compelled, pulled forward. He breaths again when he steps through the threshold. The entirety of his frame shakes as he steps into a silent nothingness. A black expanse that stretches out further than his flashlight can reach. In the back of his mind, something tells him that he should turn back. Before he can, the door shuts. And it is just him, the darkness, and his flashlight.

This feels an awful lot like a horror movie. He  _ knows _ that this is the perfect set up for something to yank him away. It would serve him right if that  _ did _ happen. He rattles the handle of the door, but it doesn’t budge. The seamless glide of its opening did not come no matter how hard he tried to pull the door towards him. He fumbled with the frame. Something this old might have some give. His fingernails scraped at the frame, flashlight tucked under his chin. But it didn’t work, and soon there was the flicker of the flashlight. The scarf around his neck makes the way for it to slip from his hold smooth. The plastic thing clatters on the ground. That’s something; he’s not just floating in space. But it is not the something he wants in favor of the light.

The flashlight flickers again, and then cuts out. He’s sucked into the darkness in a single second and his chest feels like it’ll burst. Like his heart will force its way through his ribs in its flight. He sucks in a breath, stoops down to feel for it. Maybe the switch on it had just hit the ground, and it turned itself off. The ground is cool beneath his fingers. He ignores that in favor of searching for the flashlight.

He can’t find it. He won’t find it. The thought hits him hard as his fingers scrabble over the ground. It’s a lost puzzle piece, tossed into the abyss of nothing. Or maybe not nothing. His fingers brush over what feels like a rope. The thick material is rough against his skin. He sighs, but doesn’t feel much in the way of relief.

Dongju doesn’t have much to go on. He’s now trapped in this space in a random dor in his grandmother’s house’s basement. Well, his basement now. He picks up the rope, tugs on it. It doesn’t seem to do anything. It’s just a discarded rope. Maybe something from a pet she’d had. His grandmother did have a penchant for keeping strays, too. He let it drop, turns around to where he thinks the door is. He could try it again, maybe find something that he hadn’t before.

Something like cement blocks sliding each other sounds. Like something heavy is being scraped over the rock. He freezes, listens to it until it stops. He doesn’t want to turn around. Like he hadn’t wanted to step through the threshold. But he does it anyway. At this point, he hardly thinks  _ he _ really turns himself so much as an unseen force does. A compulsion. He swallows as he does, blinks as his eyes adjust to the light now shining at him.

It’s all too bright — and then it isn’t. It’s a speck of gold light. A wispy little flame of shimmering gold. His brows furrow as he steps up to it. It darts away from him, dancing just out of his reach. It turns into something of a game; he steps forward and it moves back. It’s leading him. The thought is there in the back of his mind. It should feel insidious. His limbs shouldn’t relax with his relief to have some sort of guide because he doesn’t know what the thing is. He doesn’t know what it is leading him to. It could be a trick, for all he knew. 

This could just be an elaborate prank. He wouldn’t put it past Dongmyeong. Hwanwoong, even. His friend could have easily let himself into the fun and orchestrated this when he wasn’t around. 

“Ha ha; very funny.” The silence doesn’t echo his voice back. Just swallows it up. The light jumps ahead, further than before. He has to take longer strides to catch it again. 

He tries again. “You guys are just — you’re really so smart. So clever. Can we be done with this now?” There is still nothing. Not his voice to respond back to him. Not a sound. The wisp dances ahead of him as though it is mocking him.

“Guys?” The wisp flickers, his heart races. It might be going out. He doesn’t want to be left in the darkness by himself.

“Dongmyeong?” The wisp is dying, drooping toward the ground. It cries flickering tears of light as it grows smaller.

“Please? Guys?”

The wisp gives a final flicker before it snuffs itself out. He is plunged into darkness. The same darkness that greedily eats up his screams. His throat is sore, voice probably hoarse when he lets out a wheeze of a cry. A broken sob as he is struck with the realization that there is nothing. That he is cold and alone. He pulls the scarf around his throat tighter, but it doesn’t stop the cold from creeping into him.

He’s not sure how long he carries on like this for. Just long enough that his tears dry up and he’s hit with a thirst like he hasn’t had anything in days. With the way time has dragged, he wouldn’t be surprised if he has been down here for days. He licks his lips, feels the way the skin is getting chapped. 

Dongju’s limbs ache from — whatever position he has had them in. He can’t really see the way his limbs are moving. He’s ashamed to think that he kind of just...dropped when the wisp went away. But he did. And now he’s uncomfortable and he has to deal with it. He rearranges himself as best he can in the dark.

It’s a whisper. Just barely. But it’s something other than silence; it might as well be screaming. He glances around himself, pushes himself up to stand as best he can. He’s trembling, alone in the dark, as the voice gets louder.

“Are you lost, little lamb?” It’s a purr. In his ears, close enough that he can feel the person’s breath on his skin.

He jolts forward and they chuckle. Phantom fingers dance over the back of his neck and he steps to the side to get out of their reach. It finds it amusing. Whatever this is is enjoying his discomfort and whatever remnant of calm he has is gone.

“Who are you?”

It chuckles again. “I am the pretty thing that lives beneath you.”

“What do you mean beneath?”

“I mean beneath you, little lamb. Under your floorboards, listening to them creak as you creep.”

“Wh-why? I’m sure there are plenty of places you could find to live.” This isn’t the conversation he saw himself having today when he woke up. Asking something he couldn’t see why it lived under his house. “Better places.”

If he listens, maybe he can hear the drag of scales over the ground. And he does, but it’s not much louder than his heart beating in his ears. “But I like this place. And I’ve long since made a deal with the old woman that lives here.”

“You mean — you mean my grandmother? She’s.” He swallows, blinks. “She’s dead.”

“Oh.” The voice lilts, as if headed into the chorus of a song. “Such a shame.”

Silence hangs between them in the darkness. Dongju tries following the faint sounds around him, tracking the other as best he can. “Is there...a way for me to get back upstairs?”

“Yes.”

An explosion of light fills his eyes and he shuts them quickly. It’s so sudden Dongju can see it behind his eyelids. He waits a moment before opening his eyes again, and around him is a circle of dancing wisps. They do little to really illuminate the darkness when his eyes finally begin to adjust. It takes several blinks, but their light bounces off of something. His gaze follows a trail of something gold and shimmering. It moves, like one long limb. He realizes, belatedly, that it is just one long limb. A tail.

Dongju’s knees buckle. Just beyond the light is the gleam of teeth. Long canines and sharpened cuspids. A tongue darts out; it’s no more than a slender appendage that doesn’t catch the light and that is all he really knows. He has only mild relief in finding that he does not see red among the gold, but that relief is gone as he thinks of how it might mean this creature hasn’t eaten in some time. And that he could its first meal.

Two eyes peer down at him, watch as his knees knock together as he is barely kept standing. Its tongue darts out again. Tasting the air? He doesn’t like the thought of that.

“I can take you back up.” Easy, sweet. There’s more of scales against a rocky ground. “But would you allow me out?”

“I — Yes. Yes I can do that.” The answer flies out of him quickly, and the dread soon follows. It would follow him out of the basement and into his home. Into the world above where it would have no barriers to eating him. But, then again — it had nothing stopping it from eating him now.

The creature moves closer, no longer just gleaming eyes and teeth. “What is your name, little lamb?”

“Dongju.”

“ _ Dongju. _ ” The creature echoes it like it’s tasting the word, rolling it over his tongue. Trying it on for size. “You may call me Youngjo. It was the name the old woman gave me.”

“My grandmother.” He doesn’t know why he feels the need to correct the creature, but he does. “She was my grandmother, not just some old woman.”

“Oh, she was some woman.” Youngjo exhales, draws back from the lights. “I expect you are not so different from her.”

Dongju swallows, nods because he doesn’t quite know what else to do. “Are we. Are you going to bring me back upstairs now?” He hates how small he sounds, but there’s no avoiding it.

“Certainly.” Youngjo slinks around him again, full circle.

Or it sounds like it. He’s just outside where the light reaches. Shimmering gold and piercing eyes. It’s all he sees of the other. He must be tall, though. The eyes are far above him as he slinks ahead. The lights push forward, almost as if, once more, he is being led. He’s not sure he wants to follow them again, but he doesn’t have much choice. The cross the darkness in relative silence, Youngjo humming somewhere ahead of him. The song sounds familiar, but he cannot place it.

It stops when they reach the door. Or Dongju thinks they have. The circle of dancing lights stop, putter out one by one. He knows he’s shaking and when the last light goes out, the tremors take him a little harder. He’s back in the thickness of nothing — then the door creaks open.

Light streams in and Dongju feels like he can finally breathe. Tension leaves him as he makes for the door, pace picking up. Relief turns his senses to mush as he breathes in the familiar must of the basement. It doesn’t occur to him that he should look back, not until he feels eyes on him. They’re focused in on just him. When he does turn — a slow and excruciating moment that drags on — Youngjo is watching. The creature is still mostly shrouded in darkness, but now his scales are much more apparent. They’re like little flecks of sunlight, matching the molten gold of his eyes. He has a pretty face, angular in places and soft in others. Dongju is entranced, gaze flickering over what he can see of the other. Until clawed hands rest on the door frame. His torso pushes forward and no, those aren’t legs behind him.

He has to take a step back, a mix of awe and terror hitting him full force as his back meets the wall. The serpetine body of the other passes the threshold, mostly. Large hands reach forward to touch him, and Dongju  _ mewls _ . It’s not the least flattering thing he’s done today, but his cheeks heat, because now he can  _ see. _ Youngjo laughs, brushes a claw over Dongju’s cheek.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, neighbor.” It doesn’t seem like a phrase that could fill him with much dread, but it does. “Should have me for dinner sometime.” Youngjo laughs at his own joke, though this particular sound comes out as more of a hiss.

Youngjo slinks back into the darkness and the door slams shut as Dongju drops to his knees. Outside, by the window set high on the basement wall, a bird chirps.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
